


the last sunlit walk

by besidemethewholedamntime



Series: a life we do not want (a life we might yet have) [1]
Category: Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. (TV)
Genre: Angst, F/M, Historical AU, Mutual Pining, Waltzing
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-07-05
Updated: 2019-07-05
Packaged: 2020-06-09 16:47:24
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,055
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19479982
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/besidemethewholedamntime/pseuds/besidemethewholedamntime
Summary: '“It’s a wonderful evening,” Jemma says quietly, the first words she’s spoken during this dance. “The stuff of music such as this.”“It is,” he agrees. His mother has done a wonderful job of hosting this pre-wedding celebration. “A night for love.”At the mention of the thing they have both agreed not to speak about, Fitz ducks his head slightly. A night for love, but certainly not for them. This is not love they are dancing for. It never could have been. This moment, here, is all about survival.'It lasts as long as a dance. An historical AU with a waltz.





	the last sunlit walk

**Author's Note:**

  * For [amazingjemma](https://archiveofourown.org/users/amazingjemma/gifts).



> HAPPY BIRTHDAY TO MY WONDERFUL BEAN, OLESYA! I hope you have the best day because you deserve it for being amazing <3  
> I hope you enjoy this gift I made for you! I couldn't decide what to make for you but in the end I went with what the muse cooked up. I hope it's alright!  
> This is very much inspired by that scene in Eva Ibbotson's 'The Secret Countess' where Anna and Rupert are dancing. I love the book so much and I thought it would be nice to try and put it with Fitzsimmons. there may be a part two. I'm unsure yet!  
> I also don't know much about waltzing so I hope anything I have put in here kind of is plausible at least.  
> All quotes are from Eva Ibbotson.  
> I hope you enjoy <3

_They were under no illusions. The glittering chandeliers, the gold mirrors with their draped acanthus leaves, the plangent violins might be the stuff of romance, but this was no romance. It was a moment in a lifeboat before it sank beneath the waves; a walk across the sunlit courtyard towards the firing squad. This waltz was all they had._

_-x-_

_He checked, reversed, and she followed him perfectly. It seemed to him she could fold her very bones to lie against his own._

_-x-_

It is the most wonderful of nights.

A gorgeous summer evening, one that one could only dream of. The air is warm, the sun is casting a golden glow on the world. A night for poetry and song. A night, certainly, for dance.

The ball is already in full swing by the time he sees her, standing off to the side with Hunter. It’s been days since he’s seen her, days since they’ve last spoken, and the longing has almost grown too much for him to bear. Fitz long to speak with her, to hear her voice, to listen to that sensibility that quietly calms his raging mind whenever he really stops and thinks about what he’s doing with his life.

His fiancée is around here, somewhere. He hasn’t seen her since they opened the ball together. It gives him the peace he needs, the quiet to seek out the only one he truly wants to find, and ask her if she’d like to dance.

Her smile is genuine, lighting up her eyes, her voice devilish when she asks, “Won’t your fiancée mind?”

And Fitz is as sure as he ever will be when he says, “I don’t care.”

Jemma allows herself to be led to the floor, holding his hand lightly. There’s a moment there, while they wait for the string quartet to change their sheet music that they’re just two people, standing there waiting to dance. He’s not an Earl and she’s not a Countess and there’s not a wedding in three days that will cause them both nothing but pain. They’re just two people, standing on the precipice of something, waiting to see where it will go.

But then the violinist picks up his bow with a flourish, looks to the dancers to signify his intent to begin, and does just that. Fitz’s arms close around her and she steps closer to him, the closest she’s ever been and, very gently, they begin to waltz.

It’s hard to believe that just over two months ago, Fitz had no idea who Jemma was. She was a nameless cousin of Hunter’s, his best friend for as long as he can remember, invited to stay with them for the Summer and subsequently as a guest at Fitz’s upcoming nuptials. It seems like a lifetime ago. Once he never saw her, and now he sees her every time he closes his eyes.

“It’s a wonderful evening,” Jemma says quietly, the first words she’s spoken during this dance. “The stuff of music such as this.”

“It is,” he agrees. His mother has done a wonderful job of hosting this pre-wedding celebration. “A night for love.”

At the mention of the thing they have both agreed not to speak about, Fitz ducks his head slightly. A night for love, but certainly not for them. This is not love they are dancing for. It never could have been. This moment, here, is all about survival.

“I’m leaving,” she tells him, holding him closely, following the steps that they have both learned from childhood.

There’s an irregularity in his heartbeat, as though it wants to protest but doesn’t know how. His arms tighten around her. “Before the wedding?”

She nods, so quick that you’d miss it if you didn’t know her. “I was going to stay, Fitz, I really was but I just… I can’t.”

He’s returned to this life reluctantly after the death of his father, the old man’s final act bestowing a title upon his son that Fitz has never wanted nor cared about. The title was one thing, the debts and mortgages that the entire estate was crawling in was quite another. If it hadn’t been for his mother, for the staff that had raised him, made him who he is, allowed his mind to be filled with adventures, then he would have sold everything and taken what he could and fled.

Except he hasn’t. He hasn’t fled. He’s here, engaged and soon to be married in the presence of God, to someone who can provide for his mother, for his staff, keep his house up and running and themselves quite comfortable until death comes to claim them both. It’s everything that he should want, except he doesn’t.

Right here, right now, the only thing he wants is _her._

He swallows the disappointment he was expecting, guiding Jemma smoothly around the floor as though nothing’s wrong. “I don’t want you to go.”

A sad smile. It looks so out of place in this sunlit ballroom. “Neither do I want to go. But we both know you don’t have a choice. You must do what is right, Fitz. I can never blame you for that.”

It is his first and foremost duty, he has told himself, ever since the day he was told about his father’s death while he was in his rooms at Oxford, to provide for the people who have provided for him throughout his whole life. But when does it end, he wonders? When does the righteousness, the utter immovability of duty eclipse the need for love?

“If things were different…” he offers, unable to let his thoughts go to that forbidden place, that untouchable paradise in his mind.

“It doesn’t matter. If my family had more money, if you were free to choose who you wished, there’s no point in thinking about it.” The hand on his shoulder squeezes gently. “We simply have poor timing and poor circumstance.”

Poor timing never to be made right. Only now is it sinking in that this shall never be again. From this moment forward everything changes.

It must show on his face, for she tells him gently, “Oh come on, Fitz. We always knew it was going to be like this.” She risks a look around for his elusive fiancée. “You might grow to love her, you know. She might grow to love you.”

“She doesn’t care about loving me, Jemma,” he says, a trifle bitterly. “She wants the title, the glittering jewels. Perhaps love would be nice for her but it’s not essential. Not like…” But he trails off, unbale to finish.

Jemma’s run-ins with his fiancée have gone less than smoothly, for he knows her jealousy, her unhidden greed for what Jemma already has in her own right had made attempts at friendship hard work from the start. Still, he marvels at Jemma’s desire to be fair, her determination to still be kind as the wedding looms before them.

She ignores his half-sentence, and he wonders if maybe it’s to keep her own sanity more than anything else. “You’ve made a promise. Nothing else matters.”

 _You,_ he wants to tell her, _you matter. You matter a hell of a lot more than this._ “I could break it.”

“But you wouldn’t,” she counters, as he turns her around in the sunlight. “You would never do that.”

No, he concedes, he wouldn’t do that. He would never jilt his bride to be. He would never turn the people that depend on him out onto the street. It is their home much more than it is his own.

It’s easier to imagine, when they are dancing, a life that could be their own. Fitz and Jemma. It is so much easier to imagine _her_ as his wife. His partner, he should say. The way her eyes glow with fervour in the middle of an argument about opposing scientific views. The way she dances with him so completely it’s as if they are one. The way that, when she smiles at him, he knows that he would die for her without a second’s hesitation.

She notes his lack of an answer with a slight shake of her head. “Like I said, it’s done. It doesn’t matter.”

But she follows his every step perfectly. If he didn’t know any better, he would say she was doing the same as him: creating one perfect memory of one perfect moment so that they can live in it forever, even when the moment itself is long gone.

The music turns in on itself. The first repeat, perhaps the second. It’s like time has no meaning when she is in his arms. He wants to make this moment last as long as possible. He is too scared to live the ending; he doesn’t know how his heart will survive it.

“It matters to me.”

“Try to be happy, Fitz,” she tells him, now guiding him instead of him guiding her. “Do try to be. It will make me feel better if I know you’re trying.”

He has to swallow past a lump in his throat to get his words out. “I take it you won’t be coming back.”

It’s not as if either of them has a choice otherwise, but in this moment of magical sunlight it seems anything is possible.

“No. I won’t be. You’ll have your new life. I think it’s best I try to find mine.”

The words have the hallmark of somebody else’s. They are rehearsed, yet he thinks that they could be true. A clean break shall cut both of them but it is the best way, the only way.

The music soars and for a second they soar with it. It has been only the two of them for so long in this dance, they have forgotten the world around them exists. The end is coming, he can feel it. Panic courses through his veins, grips him fiercely. It’s like nothing he’s ever felt before. He clutches her tightly as he can while they continue to move about the floor.

“I know it’s almost the end and you have to go but, before you do, could you please just tell me that you feel the same way about me that I feel about you? Could you please just tell me that?”

Her eyes, endlessly shining, search his, looking for something he doesn’t know. She feels her fingers dig into his arm.

“I can’t tell you that, Fitz. You’re not mine to tell.”

“Please,” he whispers, voice cracking. His plea is almost lost to the music.

“It will only make it harder…”

“I have to know, I just – I have to have _something_.”

Something to get him through the long and lonely days this marriage is surely to bring. The even lonelier nights. Life without Jemma seems bleak and uninteresting. Every day reminding him that he’s doing his duty, but at what cost?

Her smile is pitying and he can’t blame her.

“You know I do,” she tells him, voice soft. “You know very well that I do.”

The melody soars, and they turn faster and faster, no more talking now. Clinging tightly, anything to delay the inevitable ending, the inevitable hurt and devastation they shall face.

The music reaches its crescendo. It seems they have, too.

And then it is over. Jemma looks up at him, eyes glowing with a brilliant exhaustion, heat flushing her cheeks. Yet there is resignation in her features, a sense of understanding. This halcyon midsummer night is over. The dream has come to an end, and now it’s time to awaken.

She pulls away from him. The sun has disappeared behind a cloud and the golden glow has left the ballroom. Nothing seems as magical as it was before.

Jemma curtsies to him. Her smile is sad and yet even then he would die for it, would die for the sheer brilliance of her.

“Oh, Fitz,” she says quietly, as other partners begin to disengage from each other and seek refreshment. She is leaving, and he must stay whilst every cell in his body cries _follow._

She touches his arm lightly. “We always knew this was going to be inevitable.”

He closes his eyes – this hurt is too much to bear – and when he opens them, she is gone.

**Author's Note:**

> Happy Birthday, Olesya! I hope your day is as wonderful as you! 
> 
> Thank you so much for reading! Please feel free to leave kudos/comments. Please feel free not to. Either way, I hope you have a lovely day!


End file.
